I've been the cornmeal advocate and it has worked for me. There have been a couple other ponders reporting success with cornmeal or similar very fine material such as silt or clay. Others are skeptical

I suspect it only works on fairly small leaks so be patient and see what happens. Your water level should be at the level of the leak to work. Good luck, let us know.

Mike

The cornmeal fix only works once the water reaches the leak leavel? If the leak is on the bottom it won't work? I was thinking/hoping that it worked by the water leaking out and pulling in the cornmeal and eventually plugging up the hole. Will keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best. Thanks for the info.

I may be way off base with this comment, but am going make it anyway. Keeping my mouth shut (hands off the keyboard) isn't a strong point of mine. :)

Do you have a waterfall or a stream? I ask because there was one spot in my stream where the water would slowly leak out, just a little at a time but enough to lower the pond.

This happened more than once. The original problem was that I didn't have enough overhang of liner at the top pool. The two causes of the leak were:

1. The liner would slip down just a little
2. Creeping jenny would cause just enough of a damming effect at the first waterfall that the water level would rise in the top pool.

And.. because there wasn't enough overhang, the water would go over the edge of the liner in that one spot.

So.. there's my comment. I hope you solve your leak problem. That is so annoying and potenially a serious situation for your fish, not to mention the extra work if you have to replace the liner.

Thanks for posting about the cornmeal. I hadn't come across that thread before. I will do a search on it as I have a friend who used a cheap plastic liner and is concerned about leaks. This may help her.

Annd

ilangie--after re-reading your post I realize I mis-spoke. My leak was on the side of the pond so having the water level there made sense.

I have no idea what will happen with a leak on the bottom, but the cornmeal does settle out quickly to the bottom.

Try it, see what happens. If it doesn't work, perhaps circulate the water a little, stir it gently somehow and let it re-settle. A tear or larger hole will require a different method to repair.

Mike